Tilt trailers are typically tiltable between a generally level bed, transport disposition for transporting a vehicle or other load disposed on the bed and a tilted load/unload disposition in which the bed is tilted with respect to the trailer frame and wherein a wheeled load, such as a vehicle, may be rolled onto or off of the bed. There is a need in the industry for underride protection for tilt trailers when the trailers are in the transport disposition. Such underride protection is needed to prevent a vehicle that collides with the rear of the tilt trailer from underriding the trailer. In such a collision without underride protection, the colliding vehicle may slide under the trailer bed and the rear of the trailer bed may then impact the passenger compartment of the colliding vehicle thereby causing injury to the occupants of the colliding vehicle.
Underride protection in non-tiltable trailers has long been provided, typically by a frame made of angle iron that depends from the rear of the bed of the trailer. Such protection is commonly seen on semi-type trailers. Such underride protection in non-tiltable trailers is typically permanently fixed in place.
A difficulty for tilt trailers is that any underride protection provided in the transport disposition must be withdrawn in some manner in order to provide for the tilting of the trailer bed in the load/unload disposition where the rear of the bed is in close proximity to the ground. A fixed underride protection frame, such as provided on the aforementioned non-tiltable trailers, would prevent such tilting by coming in contact with the ground. Accordingly, it is desirable that any underride protection for tilt trailers be automatically deployed to provide underride protection when the trailer is in the transport disposition and be automatically retracted to permit tilting of the trailer bed as the trailer bed transitions from the transport disposition to the load/unload disposition.